My Turn

The absurdities of witchcraft claims

Until the end of the 19th century, Malawian societies used to engage in hunting for and eliminating people suspected of practising witchcraft. The hunting process took many forms, a popular one being the administration of a certain concoction which would make the witches or wizards die on ingestion.

In his book Kukula ndi Mwambo (groomed for good manners), John Wilson Gwengwe describes how a sing’anga (witch doctor) would be called to a village where witchcraft was suspected to be practised. In a tete-a-tete with the chief of the village, the sing’anga would get the names of those suspected to be the perpetrators. When administering his concoction, the sing’anga would add the gall bladder of a crocodile to the portion to be ingested by any of the suspects. The poison from the gall bladder killed the suspects instantly, which supposedly was proof to the rest of the villagers that they were indeed involved in bewitching others.

Rev Dr Kilion Mgawi describes a similar scene in his autobiography, Mwana wa Kapoli Asandulika Mbusa (the son of a gule wamkulu character becomes a pastor).

Says Mgawi: “What used to happen was that on arrival, the administrator of mchape (the concoction) met the chief, who would tell him the names of the people that he suspected to be the culprits. The administrator made sure that such people were given a stronger dose of the concoction that would kill them so that the others would believe they were indeed the perpetrators of witchcraft.”(Translation mine)

Mgawi goes on to lament the chaos that ensued from this practice, which provided an opportunity to some people to eliminate the ones they did not like or had issues with.

That is the problem in dealing with the so called witchcraft. If I don’t like someone, I will simply label him or her a wizard or a witch. Without any proof, such a person will then be victimised.

Sadly, this is what some commentators want to bring us back to. There has been a resurgence of the unquestioning belief in witchcraft in Malawi, partly as a result of the Nigerian films which many people watch and apparently enjoy. Because of these films, people’s fear of witchcraft gets heightened to levels where any suggestion to the effect that someone dabbles in witchcraft will be taken very seriously indeed.

I have heard it being argued that if children accuse someone of teaching them witchcraft, that should be true because children cannot lie. Well, if there is one child in Malawi that does not know how to lie, bring him or her to me and, through a simple interview, I will prove to you that they have great propensity to lying. The point is that any child can lie. Can children tell the same lie at the same time? For sure, they can, if they are coached to do so. And that is precisely what happens.

Unfortunately, children have abundant imagination. And they can embellish any story to make it sound real.

Those pushing for the revision of our legislation to incorporate witchcraft have to come up with ways of proving that a suspect is, beyond a reasonable doubt, a practitioner of witchcraft. Unfortunately, as things stand, all the courts will rely on is somebody’s testimony. Now that is hearsay. For any court to convict any person of practising witchcraft, that person must be pinned to the act or the scene of the act. If anybody cannot produce proof of this, they should forever hold their peace, for in the absence of such proof, people will be convicted on hearsay. The Malawi judicial system will be the laughing stock of the world the day they will begin to convict people purely on hearsay.

You do not need to be endowed with special intellectual capabilities to notice the absurdity in the claims that people make about other people’s involvement in witchcraft. A three phase electric motor has a capacity of between 12 and 30 horse power or higher. At most, a human being has a capacity of 0.1 horse power. I find it extremely irritating for anybody to claim that a maize mill run on a 12 horse power motor will require the assistance of a human being (magically “installed” in the mill) to run. That, to me, is sheer nonsense. Like someone observed, why is it that each time there is an Escom blackout, the “installed” human being takes some time off and no milling takes place? n

The author is a provider of printing services and a social commentator.

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